My Favorite People Are Librarians

Some of my favorite people are librarians. They spread joy, answer questions, solve problems, and if they don’t know an answer, they know how to find it.

My all-time favorite librarian was the “tiny but mighty” Edna. She lived across the street from us. Her kids were older and soon were out on their own, but two of her grandchildren attended the school where we worked.

Edna was the librarian, and I taught kindergarten and first grade before I was promoted to fifth and sixth grades. (I was moved up because no one wanted to handle the group of kids I had taught. They were a unique group; I always thought it was due to clouds of strontium 90 that contaminated milk when they were babes.)

These were the same kids who were in high school when I embarked on my career as a Principal of Vice in summer school. It was a blow to my ego to see how unsuccessful I had been in teaching basic “go-to-school” rules to this cohort. Basics such as keep your hands to yourself, be courteous, and above all, do your own work and turn it in on time.

Edna also worked with some of my sixth-grade students to make an animated film about the War of 1812; this was a frame-by-frame creation. The kids were proudest of the sequence when the White House burned, and the flames flashed and danced. Frame-by-frame animation is a lost art, or soon will be. I dare say few people have the patience to engage kids in such an activity.

The other thing about Edna was that she was one of those persons who not only recognized the needs of others but acted. After our school became the first in King County to set up a program to receive students from Southeast Asia following the fall of Saigon, Edna and Jean, the reading specialist, hosted a class for the moms of our ESL students to teach them about shopping in local grocery stores. For several years, I picked up the moms, delivered them to Jean’s house, and drove them home. They would show the ladies how to replace their familiar foods with similar local products and teach them how to cook American dishes. The ladies that I drove home were enthusiastic in their praise of tacos.

But in my book, the greatest thing Edna ever did was to inspire my youngest to become a school librarian, too.

Like Edna, my daughter is an active participant in the life of her school and in regional and national librarian associations. It seems that my daughter has many of the same traits that Edna exhibited — seeing a problem and solving it. She started a support group for her colleagues. From her, I learned that a support group should have no more than six people in it, because that is the number of people who can sit in a restaurant booth and still be heard. She also started a book group called Book Soup. They do demand more of the hostess, who is required to provide the soup.

In my view, the library is the heart of a school as well as the heart of a community. This is because of the people who work there and their commitment to the members of the community. When I arrived on the Key 27 years ago, the first place I chose to volunteer was our library. Dory Myers, the librarian at the time, gave me a task. I got to clean books that came in with sticky covers. I developed a habit of reading the blurbs on the books while fulfilling my task, and consequently, I only read “dirty books” during that period.

Soon, I joined the Library Book Group. It was the only book group I have ever belonged to that actually discussed the book.

In Kent, I had been involved in developing library programs for the downtown library, so as I got involved with the Friends of the Key Center Library, I participated in the programs committee. When the Friends group reorganized after the COVID shutdown, I was part of the board but had too many irons in the fire to continue. Now I stop in and pick up the book club books to read them, but I have yet to make it to the book discussion sessions.

Meanwhile, if you are new to the community, bored, or lonely, I would advise you to go to the library. You will probably meet some really wonderful, interesting people.

Award-winning columnist Carolyn Wiley lives quietly, for the most part, in Longbranch.